Merry Christmas to all, AND, Fixing the Photos

Season's Greetings!

If I could spend a whole day in a library as elegant as this with its curved shape, beautiful shelves and cabinets, graceful reading table, historic photographs -- and did I mention the books? -- it would be a holiday indeed.

The library of Paul I at Pavlosk, his summer palace in Pushkin

However you choose to spend yours, and with whomever, much joy to you.

And our thanks for your gift of 2012 to us. Here's to 2013!

Barbara and The Poisoned Pen Staff

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A Word from Craig Johnson...

From Craig Johnson of the Walt Longmire series (and now TV hit) in response to my news that Rob and I had been in Russia.

I wrote to Craig,"Rob and I had a great 8 days in St. Petersburg in early December, 17 and blizzards. Sort of like Wyoming..."

He wrote back: "I once told my French publisher how long it took to drive from Jackson to Cheyenne and he proclaimed, 'Good God, Craig... I can drive from Paris to Moscow in that amount of time.' I told him he'd probably see a lot more, too. Happy Holidays!"

We will be seeing Craig in April or June, depending on which month Viking publishes the new Walt.

A Wee Gift from Andrew Taylor

Andrew writes he publishes an e-story called Broken Voices for the holidays.

It is set a hundred years ago in an East Anglian cathedral city. It's Christmas, and two lonely schoolboys at the end of childhood are forced into an unwanted companionship. One of them is terrified of what the future holds.

Does music have its ghosts? Its victims? Something is stirring in the cathedral that both echoes an ancient tragedy and seems to offer a chance of future happiness. One thing is certain. Broken voices make false promises. And their lies may prove fatal.

It is available from amazon.co.uk, etc. I am not sure if you can download it to a US device but give it a try. Click here.

And if it doesn't download, please don't call me Scrooge!

A Cautionary Tale...

When this email arrived from one of my own authors, Ronald Sharp, winner of our first Discover Mystery Contest, I knew it came from an experienced attorney! Read it closely.

"At this time of the year, when the police roadblocks come up with great regularity, I would like to share a personal experience about drinking and driving.

As you well know, some of us have been known to have had brushes with the authorities on our way home from an occasional social session over the years.

A couple of nights ago, I was out for an evening with friends and had a couple of cocktails and some rather nice red wine.

Knowing full well I may have been slightly over the limit, I did something I've never done before. I took a cab home. Sure enough, I passed a police road block but, since it was a cab, they waved it past.

I arrived home safely without incident, which was a real surprise as I have never driven a cab before and am not sure where I got it or what to do with it now that it's in my garage."

Read Sharp's debut mystery No Regrets, No Remorse (Poisoned Pen ($24.95 or $15) for a similar experience:

This and That...

We are all mad for Bruno, Chief of Police ($15), one of my favorite First Mystery Club Picks ever, and Bruno's further gastronomic and detecting adventures (note I put these in the proper order) in Le Perigord, a region of France rich in everything it takes to make a delicious reading experience. Martin Walker sent me this link to a video featuring Bruno's beat in winter, crackling fires, geese, fellowship, and Martin himself. It's fun to watch and will test your German -- but you don't need to translate to enjoy the images! Click here for 13+ fun minutes.

A wonderful gift today: a rave review for one of my authors in today's New York Times Book Review. Priscilla Royal's nine medieval mysteries have earned her 8 Starred Reviews from Publisher's Weekly alone, and are about to hit the UK market.

Wonderful for fans of Ellis Peters, Sharan Newman (who is back to see us January 7), and the late Ariana Franklin.

The NY Times writes this of The Sanctity of Hate (Poisoned Pen $24.95 Signed here January 19, or in trade paperback at $15). It is our December History/Mystery Club Pick as well:

"Aside from the castle of your father, the king, the safest place for a woman in the Middle Ages was a well-run religious institution like the one that figures in Priscilla Royal's enthralling medieval mysteries. Tyndal Priory has long thrived under the progressive policies of the aristocratic Eleanor, so there's no accounting for the murder and mayhem that seem to plague this holy retreat - except for the opportunity they offer for Royal's insights into the upheavals of the period. The vividly drawn characters in The Sanctity of Hate (Poisoned Pen, cloth, $24.95; $14.95) enlighten us on many details of monastic life. But it's the harrowing scene of a Jewish woman suffering the agonies of a difficult childbirth while a howling mob threatens violence that sums up Royal's two dark themes: the lowly status and cruel treatment of women, and the persecution of England's Jewish population."

And just as wonderful, a rave is in from the UK where the Byzantine Mysteries, One through Nine, are now publishing. Repackaged as by ME Mayer (rather than by husband and wife Mary Reed and Eric Mayer, as we have published them), and repackaged, they will do very well if this review of One for Sorrow ($15), the first (and rewritten) book in the series is any indication:

"Do you love intrigue, double dealing, political machinations all wrapped around a life or
death mystery? You do. Well look no longer, this book by ME Mayer really will hit the spot as it takes you back to ancient Byzantium where the Roman Empire hangs on with its fingertips against a world ranged against it. It's quirky, it has some wonderful imagination, but for me the real kicker here is a lead character that more than introduces us to this world of constant danger. Back this up with wonderful pace, some great twits which when backed with an author who loves to keep you guessing, all round makes this a book that was a solid title to read."

Our January Events Calendar...So Far

Sun. Jan. 6 Betty Webb 2 PM signs The Llama of Death ($25 or $15)

New: Mon. Jan. 7: Sharan Newman signs Death Before Compline (Byrum $9.95), 7 stories of Catherine Levendeur and her family

Wed. Jan. 9: Rollins & Cantrell sign The Blood Gospel ($28)

Sat. Jan. 12: Coffee and Crime 10:30 AM

Tues. Jan. 15: Thomas Caplan signs The Spy Who Jumped Off the Screen ($16 paperback edition)

Wed. Jan. 16: Sue Grafton signs Kinsey and Me ($28)

Sat. Jan 19: Priscilla Royal 2 PM signs Sanctity of Hate ($25 or $150

Mon. Jan. 21: Brad Meltzer 6:30 PM signs The Fifth Assassin ($29)

Tues. Jan 22: Steven Hunter signs The Third Bullet ($27)

Thurs. Jan 24: Hardboiled Crime Club

Sun. Jan. 27 Ian Rankin 2 PM signs Standing in Another Man's Grave ($26)

Wed. Jan 30: Erica Bauermeister signs The Lost Art of Mixing ($26)

Thurs. Jan. 31: Charles Todd signs Proof of Guilt ($26)

Feb. 2: Earlene Fowler 2 PM signs The Road to Cardinal Valley ($26)

Reprise of the Photos: Catherine's Palace in Pushkin near St. Petersburg

PLUS All the Others from Our Trip

While I can see the photos clearly in my browser, many of you could not. I should have

known better than to try to paste them in but Rob hadn't posted them on his website and Will is off in Europe on a long vacation. So, my bad.

The photos are now posted on robertrosenwald.com where if you want to plow through all the other photos of St. Petersburg he took in early December, have at it. To see the ones I sent out in the last Enews, start with the 4th photo, it is of the palace in a blizzard, and go to the 17th, again the exterior of the palace but now in sunlight.

Ignore Photos 19-24. The next batch starting with 25 are all in Pavlovsk, Paul's palace in Pushkin. Then come several taken in the wonderful Dom Knigi, or bookstore on the Nevsky Prospect which overlooks Kazan Cathedral from its cafe on the second floor (photos 12-126), then a group of photos of the wonderful Hotel Grand Europe, also on the Nevsky Prospect and across from the Mikhailovsky Palace or Russian Art Museum which comes next starting with the snowy lions to Photo 184. I love this one for the little girl in the school group touring the museum (on a Sunday) clutching her pink rabbit. Then we are outside in the park where actors are in costume for photos opps, and looking at the domes of the cathedral marking the spot of Tsar Alexander's assassination.

Then comes The Hermitage which like the Mikhailovsky is at once a palace and a museum so some rooms are about the palace and some about the collection. It goes on and on, but photos 288 shows you the River Neva all blocks of ice from outside The Hermitage. Then you get some city scenes. At Photo 318 it's back to The Hermitage (we did spend 6 days there).

Photo 331 is the famous Malachite Room. The mineral is slice thinly and veneered to stone, the columns and such are not solid malachite -- same with lapis lazuli.

Photos 351 is a roof cleaning crew -- one wonders why they don't slip off. then we are visiting the Alexnader Nevsky monastery and finally St. Isaacs Cathedral.

Photos 397 on are an evening out at a rooftop restaurant and Photo 406 is, no kidding, the view from the restaurant on the dome of St. Isaacs. click on any photo to enlarge it. At 410 we're back at The Hermitage in the basement in the classics section and also where the Gold and Diamond Rooms are, but no photos allowed (Scythian and other ancient burial finds, Faberge enamels...)

Then while I spent the afternoon wandering the museum by myself, Rob went to a commune and took a bunch of photos, one family living in two rooms and sharing a kitchen and, for the whole commune, one bathroom -- Photos 442-467.

Then the synagogue I've shown you, then the Yusupov Palace which is where the murder of Rasputin was carried out (see the wax figures in the two scenes of the crime room), See Photo 478 etc. The palace has a beautiful little theater, Photos 538-40. Prince Yusupov, the lead Rasputin conspirator (and what an inept group they were) escaped the Bolsheviks with his wife Irina, a cousin of the Tsar, but he made one secret foray back to collect hidden jewels, two Rembrandts, and a poortrait of Alexander III for the Tsar's widow. When the funds from this haul ran out in Paris, the Prince wrote a memoir about Rasputin's murder, and when those funds ran out came a movie and then various lawsuits. Google Yusupov and enjoy. He and Irina have living descendants who (so far) are making no claims for their inheritance.

His mother Princess Zenaida was a dazzling beauty (she too died in Paris, 1939) and court favorite. Her most famous jewel, a baroque pearl, ended up with Elizabeth Taylor. To see a video of Zenaida, watch this on You Tube (skip the ad). Click here to view.

And then the Catherine Palace in lots more photos from Photo 567 on. Whew.

One final note: our various guides, one of whom can't remember Communism, referred to the Cold War years as "Soviet Times." They have really moved on, restoring the imperial heritage, working with capitalism. One older guide seemed nostalgic for the caretaking of the Soviet era, and some choose to live in that style like the Professor and his family in the commune, but otherwise you could be in Europe. Plus I've never seen better French pastry than in St. Petersburg (or eaten it) and chocolate manufacture is an whole industry. The imperial porcelain factory is briskly at work. And the traffic--impossible. Better it is to walk much of the city which with its canals and rivers is much like Venice, but a lot colder.

Repeat:

Where is the Amber Room (fully reconstructed with the addition of one original panel recovered from a German soldier's estate and now displayed)? Photos are no longer allowed but Rob has some from our earlier visit in summer five years ago which I will winkle out. To this day no one (yet) knows what happened to the famous panels and fittings of amber for this small interior room in Catherine's Palace, given to her by the Prussian king of the time, but it's fueled a number of crime novels with speculation

Much of the palace and Pushkin, as this summer retreat of the Romanovs was renamed after the great poet was killed in a duel, was destroyed by the Nazis during the Siege of Leningrad as Pushkin was behind enemy lines. Russia has invested heavily in restoring its historical heritage here.

Also, the gardens are amazing, very 18th Century, but in the blizzard we did not revisit them, nor did we go to the Peterhof where in December the fountains are turned off.

We did however visit Pavlovsk or Paul's Palace for which Catherine the Great gave Paul and his wife the property (after she snitched their two eldest sons to raise, one becoming Tsar Alexander I of War and Peace fame after the murder of Paul)

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